tl;dr: Please refrain from adding new strings that require translations to MediaWiki and deployed extensions until further notice.
Due to changes we are making in the way our translation systems process data we will be temporarily disabling the auto deployment of newly translated content until further notice. The goal of these changes will be to improve the evaluation of content submitted to our translation services.
This means developers should not merge new translatable strings into MediaWiki Core nor Wikimedia deployed extensions until we re-enable the system. This is to prevent longer term issues where local wiki admins overwrite a string and thus prevent updates from new and improved translations.
We apologize for any inconvenience this delay in service may cause and will alert you as soon as this maintenance is completed.
Greg Grossmeier
Since this is clearly a request to developers, I suggest posting a link to the relevant ticket(s).
Alex
On Wed, 26 Sep 2018 at 23:20, Greg Grossmeier greg@wikimedia.org wrote:
tl;dr: Please refrain from adding new strings that require translations to MediaWiki and deployed extensions until further notice.
Due to changes we are making in the way our translation systems process data we will be temporarily disabling the auto deployment of newly translated content until further notice. The goal of these changes will be to improve the evaluation of content submitted to our translation services.
This means developers should not merge new translatable strings into MediaWiki Core nor Wikimedia deployed extensions until we re-enable the system. This is to prevent longer term issues where local wiki admins overwrite a string and thus prevent updates from new and improved translations.
We apologize for any inconvenience this delay in service may cause and will alert you as soon as this maintenance is completed.
Greg Grossmeier
-- | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | | Release Team Manager A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D | _______________________________________________ Engineering mailing list Engineering@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/engineering
Hey,
I'm sorry to hear about such an issue. I can only assume it means massive trouble for your team, Greg.
Unfortunately for me being one of the receivers of this message I must say it does not make the slightest sense.
What happened? Is there a Phabricator ticket I can read up?
What is the issue with making further changes to any en.json file? What trouble can a new entry in one of these files cause that you ask everybody to stop editing them, instead of – let's say – stop the bot that creates the corresponding entries on translatewiki.net? The request effectively means everybody needs to stop working on UI features. How do you plan to make sure such changes to the multiple hundred en.json files we maintain are indeed not done any more? What will happen if a patch gets merged by a team that relies on translatewiki.net translations, but did not got your message, or did not understood it? Nothing? If so, why can't we continue editing our very own localization files, and solve the issue your team is working on – whatever it is – independent from that?
TL;DR: What is going on?
Best Thiemo
As I understand, nothing terrible will happen if you add new messages to en.json. But new translations will not be added, so any new interfaces will be in English for everyone, which is a poor experience.
Hi. If so, I think that the next issue of the Tech news should recommend to fix the existing translations locally, instead of translatewiki.com. Igal (User:IKhitron)
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 14:31 Bartosz Dziewoński matma.rex@gmail.com wrote:
As I understand, nothing terrible will happen if you add new messages to en.json. But new translations will not be added, so any new interfaces will be in English for everyone, which is a poor experience.
-- Bartosz Dziewoński
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 1:43 PM יגאל חיטרון khitron@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. If so, I think that the next issue of the Tech news should recommend to fix the existing translations locally, instead of translatewiki.com.
Ermm, isn’t this _exactly_ what we want to avoid (and why the original message was sent in the first place)? Local translations will not be updated if neccessary, being stuck basically forever once set (and will not be propagated to other wikis, but that is the lesser problem; once TranslateWiki starts working again, that will be fixed, the local translations won’t).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]
Sure, but *existing* messages are fixed all the time, if you want it or not. And you should choose - fix them locally, and then make it global after the translatewiki will return, or fix the in translatewiki, and it will not work at all. Igal
2018-09-27 14:47 GMT+03:00 petr.kadlec@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 1:43 PM יגאל חיטרון khitron@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. If so, I think that the next issue of the Tech news should recommend
to
fix the existing translations locally, instead of translatewiki.com.
Ermm, isn’t this _exactly_ what we want to avoid (and why the original message was sent in the first place)? Local translations will not be updated if neccessary, being stuck basically forever once set (and will not be propagated to other wikis, but that is the lesser problem; once TranslateWiki starts working again, that will be fixed, the local translations won’t).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
N3 Trizek just said that translatewiki will work for existing messages. I read here they will not. What is the right answer? Thank you. Igal
2018-09-27 15:47 GMT+03:00 יגאל חיטרון khitron@post.bgu.ac.il:
Sure, but *existing* messages are fixed all the time, if you want it or not. And you should choose - fix them locally, and then make it global after the translatewiki will return, or fix the in translatewiki, and it will not work at all. Igal
2018-09-27 14:47 GMT+03:00 petr.kadlec@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 1:43 PM יגאל חיטרון khitron@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. If so, I think that the next issue of the Tech news should
recommend to
fix the existing translations locally, instead of translatewiki.com.
Ermm, isn’t this _exactly_ what we want to avoid (and why the original message was sent in the first place)? Local translations will not be updated if neccessary, being stuck basically forever once set (and will not be propagated to other wikis, but that is the lesser problem; once TranslateWiki starts working again, that will be fixed, the local translations won’t).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Updates from translatewiki will be put on pause. You can continue to update translations at translatewiki, but they won't show up on Wikimedia wikis until the current issues are sorted out.
In order to avoid things getting out of sync with translatewiki, we would like to ask that you avoid translating things locally unless you really need to until updates from translate wiki are turned back on.
-- Brian
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 12:49 PM, יגאל חיטרון khitron@post.bgu.ac.il wrote:
N3 Trizek just said that translatewiki will work for existing messages. I read here they will not. What is the right answer? Thank you. Igal
2018-09-27 15:47 GMT+03:00 יגאל חיטרון khitron@post.bgu.ac.il:
Sure, but *existing* messages are fixed all the time, if you want it or not. And you should choose - fix them locally, and then make it global after the translatewiki will return, or fix the in translatewiki, and it will not work at all. Igal
2018-09-27 14:47 GMT+03:00 petr.kadlec@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 1:43 PM יגאל חיטרון khitron@gmail.com wrote:
Hi. If so, I think that the next issue of the Tech news should
recommend to
fix the existing translations locally, instead of translatewiki.com.
Ermm, isn’t this _exactly_ what we want to avoid (and why the original message was sent in the first place)? Local translations will not be updated if neccessary, being stuck basically forever once set (and will not be propagated to other wikis, but that is the lesser problem; once TranslateWiki starts working again, that will be fixed, the local translations won’t).
-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:06 AM bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
Updates from translatewiki will be put on pause. You can continue to update translations at translatewiki, but they won't show up on Wikimedia wikis until the current issues are sorted out.
In order to avoid things getting out of sync with translatewiki, we would like to ask that you avoid translating things locally unless you really need to until updates from translate wiki are turned back on.
Couldn't you also make sure to edit things in both places? That is, make the edit on translatewiki, then manually copy it over to your local wiki, and expect that it will be overwritten when updates from translatewiki are turned back on? --scott
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:37 AM C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Couldn't you also make sure to edit things in both places? That is, make the edit on translatewiki, then manually copy it over to your local wiki, and expect that it will be overwritten when updates from translatewiki are turned back on?
The "expect that it will be overwritten" part isn't how it works. The local copy will remain in effect until someone deletes it.
Thank you. So, you are talking about avoiding any possibility to fix errors in existing messages, nevermind where. I am not sure the communities will be happy... Igal
2018-09-27 16:44 GMT+03:00 Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjorsch@wikimedia.org:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:37 AM C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Couldn't you also make sure to edit things in both places? That is, make the edit on translatewiki, then manually copy it over to your local wiki, and expect that it will be overwritten when updates from translatewiki
are
turned back on?
The "expect that it will be overwritten" part isn't how it works. The local copy will remain in effect until someone deletes it.
-- Brad Jorsch (Anomie) Senior Software Engineer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:44 AM Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjorsch@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:37 AM C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Couldn't you also make sure to edit things in both places? That is, make the edit on translatewiki, then manually copy it over to your local wiki, and expect that it will be overwritten when updates from translatewiki
are
turned back on?
The "expect that it will be overwritten" part isn't how it works. The local copy will remain in effect until someone deletes it.
Wouldn't "delete all local overrides" (or "all local overrides added since 2018-09-27") be a reasonable step to include in migration after the "new translatewiki" is turned back on? --scott
Yes, we can run my deleteEqualMessages.php again, for all wikis.
It does require byte equivalence. And in my experience that means it almost never does what you want. People will copy it slightly differently due to spacing or with less generic syntax (eg Wikipedia: vs Project), or someone will edit it since then on TWN.
-- Timo
On Thu, 27 Sep 2018 at 16:39, C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:44 AM Brad Jorsch (Anomie) < bjorsch@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 9:37 AM C. Scott Ananian <cananian@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Couldn't you also make sure to edit things in both places? That is,
make
the edit on translatewiki, then manually copy it over to your local
wiki,
and expect that it will be overwritten when updates from translatewiki
are
turned back on?
The "expect that it will be overwritten" part isn't how it works. The
local
copy will remain in effect until someone deletes it.
Wouldn't "delete all local overrides" (or "all local overrides added since 2018-09-27") be a reasonable step to include in migration after the "new translatewiki" is turned back on? --scott _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 11:39 AM C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wouldn't "delete all local overrides" (or "all local overrides added since 2018-09-27") be a reasonable step to include in migration after the "new translatewiki" is turned back on?
"Delete all local overrides" would be horrible, you'd lose all local wiki customizations. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllMessages&prefix=... for enwiki's customizations for example (although English might not be included in the purge), or https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spezial:MediaWiki-Systemnachricht... for dewiki's.
"Added since 2018-09-27" would only be marginally better. Old overrides wouldn't be lost, but you'd still wipe out new overrides that are intended to actually be overrides rather than workarounds for this issue.
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 11:51 AM Brad Jorsch (Anomie) bjorsch@wikimedia.org wrote:
"Added since 2018-09-27" would only be marginally better. Old overrides wouldn't be lost, but you'd still wipe out new overrides that are intended to actually be overrides rather than workarounds for this issue.
Would that be worse than turning away missing/incorrect translations for <time period>?
Depends on how long <time period> is, I guess. I don't think we ever got an estimate of that? --scott
Good news: l10n-bot appears to be exporting translations again. I assume crisis has been averted.
We managed to successfully get changes rolling through CI on Wednesday. Translations are being merged but not deployed nightly, and will go out with the normal train (next week?). Nothing has been resolved officially or announced because it's still tentative at this point. Hopefully, it's smooth sailing but we'll see. More details to come when we know for sure where we stand.
Best,
Chase
On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 12:47 PM Bartosz Dziewoński matma.rex@gmail.com wrote:
Good news: l10n-bot appears to be exporting translations again. I assume crisis has been averted.
-- Matma Rex _______________________________________________ Engineering mailing list Engineering@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/engineering
There's no train next week. It's dc switch over.
Best
On Thu, Oct 4, 2018, 20:49 Chase Pettet cpettet@wikimedia.org wrote:
We managed to successfully get changes rolling through CI on Wednesday. Translations are being merged but not deployed nightly, and will go out with the normal train (next week?). Nothing has been resolved officially or announced because it's still tentative at this point. Hopefully, it's smooth sailing but we'll see. More details to come when we know for sure where we stand.
Best,
Chase
On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 12:47 PM Bartosz Dziewoński matma.rex@gmail.com wrote:
Good news: l10n-bot appears to be exporting translations again. I assume crisis has been averted.
-- Matma Rex _______________________________________________ Engineering mailing list Engineering@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/engineering
-- Chase Pettet chasemp on phabricator https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/p/chasemp/ and IRC _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hello,
Thank you for bearing with us while translation updates were stopped.
We are now updating translations for Wikimedia sites with the weekly MediaWiki train based on the updates that are being provided by translatewiki.net. Feel free to add new translatable strings now.
However, during the investigation of the instigating security incident we identified architectural issues with the systems and processes that make up the nightly localization updates. This update process is currently disabled and will remain disabled until there is a clear plan and resourcing for improving the architecture. The task tracking this discussion is at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T206694 .
In the mean time new translations will go out with the weekly MediaWiki train.
Thank you for your continued understanding,
Greg
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org